There will be random thoughts about dyeing, marbling and quilting. Hopefully there will be some information that is new to people. Nature is my inspiration and because of that, I reserve the right to publish lots and lots of pictures of animals, birds, butterflies and plants!

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Well, there was half a bag of ice left in the freezer and despite having to get ready to head south, I couldn't help myself and did my last bunch of ice dyeing! This time I switched back to 2 yard pieces of sateen -- yes, I have really been delving into the long hoarded sateen as I thought these experiments deserved the best!! I am out of a lot of colors of dyes by this point (yay) so dipped into some that I hadn't used before like the Basic Blue (the only red/blue pure dye), some quite old Boysenberry which I never thought was strong enough and Lemon Yellow which I dislike usually so I mixed it with the Sun Yellow which is my favorite -- these are both pure dyes.. It certainly did the job in these high concentrations!! I had an interesting experience with this and another piece. I was in such a hurry to apply the dyes that I did so on part of the piece BEFORE I added the ice. I just covered it with ice. Since it was the Basic Blue which takes its time to bond, it worked out just fine. Red wouldn't have and would have resulted in speckles.

This was the piece I was most dissatisfied with as it had just too much white in it. I thought the rest was interesting enough that it made up for it! I tried in this piece to mix up the warm and cool colors so that there was a bit of a look of a flower garden. I didn't have any green left so used some yellow with the blues.

I am not sure what was in this one except for there was red (strongest red which is a mix) and a mix of lemon and sun yellow as well as strong orange. I don't know whether I added any brown or blue to this -- have no idea!! This one I actually think looks even better in person.

Again, this was the same mix as the piece above. I should note that these were all 8 repeats -- accordion folded three times (resulting in four layers) and then folded in half. The resulting piece is then the size of a fat quarter (22x18) before it is scrunched to about 1/4 that size.

This piece was the exception and was quite a bit wider than the 2 yards. I folded it resulting in 8 repeats across the fabric and didn't fold it in half. I should note that this time I put some fabric underneath the fabric with the ice and let the dyes drip down on it (I had pretreated it with soda ash as well). I did not like the results although there were some interesting patterns but lost with the speckles caused by bits of dye that went down with no water. I have become obsessed with pattern, I am afraid!!I want to thank two of my readers who were disturbed that I reported that Marshall Dry Goods no longer had pfd cotton. They called and found that they do still carry it. They had just forgotten to add it back to their website after they were out of it for awhile. I have no idea what the current cost is but the last batch I got was a really good quality and cheaper than anyone else.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

I just finished ironing the latest of my experiments which was an 8-repeat. It was fan folded across the width and then folded in half repeating the pattern to the left 8 times. So you will see how it unfolded in the following photos. I can definitely see my scrunching pattern here as well. This was how the fabric was folded and I scrunched almost creating ridges from top to bottom and very little side to side. Normally when scrunching the fabric, I would do both ways but the fabric is pretty narrow by this point (about 11 inches wide by 18 inches long). I had several of these "packets" lined up on the racks so applying the dye was a bit random as I didn't know where one ended and the next began. I did try to concentrated on the edges with the darkest dye. There is a mix of all sorts of colors in here. Thank goodness I am starting to run out of those very old dyes! The fabric is print cloth from the last order ever from Marshall Dry Goods which no longer sells the pfd fabric. Luckily I bought 200 yards the last time I ordered! I still have some of that left as well as some 108 wide print cloth from them. They were the cheapest source I ever found!

This is unfolded once which basically gives you one of the four fat quarters that make up the design.

Here is half the piece.

This is the whole piece of fabric which is 45 x 36 inches. I think the eight repeat is the best so far from a repeating and depth of shade standpoint.

This is the same piece only I just showed a chunk out of the middle in this photo.

I did thirteen yards this time around. I won't show you all of them but I was quite happy with them although I still have some experimenting to do. The following pictures will first show the 1/8 of a yard piece showing the repeat pattern and then the whole piece

Monday, August 19, 2013

I finally spotted an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail the other day but he was pretty bedraggled as was one of the other butterflies I spotted.

This was a Black Swallowtail who was also a bit torn up but looks good in this pose.

Last but certainly not least, a lovely Monarch graced the butterfly bush in this beautiful weather we have been having!I know there is a butterfly quilt in my future.

Our begonias have been stunning this year, just covered with blossonms. This is one of my favorities -- the yellow begonias right after a little rain.

We visited friends out in the country and they have a very active bird feeder in their yard. Unfortunately, there are not as many birds this time of year. May or June are much better months when the feeders are covered with Red Breasted Grosbeaks and Baltimore Orioles. I did like t his pair of Mourning Doves sitting on the feeder which was a bit unusual.

Of course there is always a Hairy Woodpecker or two there.

A Goldfinch has just grabbed one of the sunflower seeds.

I believe this is a White Breasted Nuthatch. There were also House Finches and Juncos.

This should be an easy one to identify but I am not sure. It looks like it might be a female Red Breasted Grosbeak as it was a fairly good sized bird. It was much prettier than the other females I have seen it that is what it was.

Last but not least, is our friend Nola with one of her two miniature horses. He is just three years old and is turning blonde. Nola is only about 5 feet tall so you can see how small this horse is. The other one is bigger and not quite as friendly!I couldn't help myself and bought some more ice yesterday while grocery shopping. This ice is much smaller and I think it will be great for ice dyeing and Shiborice (as a reader suggested)! I am going to try 8 thicknesses this time and may actually try some other variations at some point. I don't have much time before heading to North Carolina and a visit from youngest daughter and her family.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Very reminiscent of the Dear Jane quilts I made a few years back, this is called Sylvia's Bridal Quilt and is by Nick Williams. Evidently the pattern is from one of Jennifer Chiavarini's books. Just lovely!!All in all, it was a very nice show. There were not many quilts from GVQC, probably because our show was so recently and people didn't want to show the same quilts again and haven't had time to make new ones!

This was by Lynda Macdonald and was just beautiful. A closeup follows.

This was Fireworks by Glenda Prin.

This was by Allison Lovallo from a pattern in an old Quiltmaker magazine.

This was called Remembering Jennifer by Donna German in honor of her daughter.

I loved this one by Kate Chace called Circle of Life. She used hundreds of different fabrics, mostly batiks.

This was called Jungle Walk by Nancy Trimmer.

This was called Winter in the Garden by Louise Mayer.

This was called Winter Solstice by our very talented machine quilter Val Schultz. She has become addicted to ice and snow dyeing as well and this is one of the pieces she created. There is wonderful machine quilting on this wholecloth quilt but probably not very visible in this photo.

Friday, August 16, 2013

I pushed the envelope with this group with some more successful than others. My challenge was to see how many layers of fabric the dye would flow through and give some semblance of the same pattern. I did two different foldings of fabric to test this. Fold 1 was folding one yard in quarters accordion style across the width of the fabric and then in quarters again across the lengths, again accordion style not just folds. Fold 2 was folding in eighths across the width again accordion style and then just folding it in half across the length. Both give you 16 layers. I used pfd print cloth for all but one which was Egyptian cotton. I figured the weave of the fabric (the Egyptian cotton is higher thread count) would affect it which it didn't seem to do.

This was probably my favorite of the bunch. I utilized Black 604, Intense Blue and a little Blue/Violet. This was a Fold 1 variation. I tried to put the black along the edges which doesn't show up as much on this one as some others.

This had a lot of black in it and is nicer looking in person It looks to me like 8 is about the maximum thicknesses where you get the same patterns. If I cut this at the half yard mark, I would have two different looking pieces. Of course, they will make awesome fat quarters!!

Another black, blue and purple that seemed to photograph better.

This was my favorite as it looked like there were circles and a center point. You can see most clearly here the folds that resulted in 16 thicknesses. Again, I put the black around the edge. I didn't scrunch these very much if any either.

Another one that didn't photo well -- a lot of black but quite nice in person.

This was one of the ones that was folded in eighths and then in half (Fold 2). Again, looks like I could cut down the middle and have two different patterns.

Another of the folds across but instead of folding in half, I just sxcrunched it up tighter. I like parts of this one more than other parts. I have found that I like to restrict my colors rather than using the whole rainbow on one piece which I did with a couple here.

This was a Fold 2 example. I liked the top half but too many colors as I think I used them all but tried not to put complementary colors next to each other. I might not have used quite enough dye as well for these colors that didn't go through the 16 layers as effectively. If I decide to get some more ice next week, I may try some with just 8 layers to see how that goes. This is terribly addictive!! I may have to give this a new name as new ideas keep coming!! So "shicebori" it is for now.....